My cell phone rang early on a Saturday morning in September 2018. It was Krista Armstrong, owner of Local Source Market on Agricola Street.
“Emily? Are you close? There’s a lineup…all the way down the street!!” she said with glee.
Sure enough, as I pulled around the corner of Charles Street on that sunny late summer day, there WAS a big line of smiling people, many of them wearing Boxing Rock t-shirts. It was opening day for our Agricola Street Test Kitchen, the tiny brewery and retail outlet we opened inside the Local Source Market on Agricola Street. We were excited to finally have our own place in Halifax: a tiny place to make experimental beers and a place where our fans could find all the Boxing Rock beers all the time. And the sight of all those people lined up for us made my heart very, very big. If you were one of those people just know you made my day at a time in my life where not so many things were going right.
I sat on a stool just inside the door of the Local Source Market for hours that morning meeting our most enthusiastic customers and handing each one a very special growler - one with orange printing which meant a lifetime discount for the recipient. We still see these growlers often at our Windsor Street location and every time I see one I know that person was part of that very special day.